Up to 5,000 asylum seekers in Germany not fingerprinted or photographed – migration agency

Around 5,000 known asylum seekers in Germany still haven’t been photographed or fingerprinted, according to local media, citing the head of the country’s migration agency.

There are some 5,000 refugees seeking asylum in Germany that haven’t been fingerprinted or photographed, the head of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), Jutta Cordt, said on Wednesday, Die Welt reports.

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The number of unregistered asylum seekers is still being estimated, a BAMF spokeswoman said on Thursday, adding that it’s within the range of four-digit figures.

Federal states had previously given assurances that all asylum seekers were recorded, the spokeswoman added. However, the BAMF began receiving further reports that not all of them had been registered properly.

All foreigners aged over 14 requesting asylum in Germany have to be identified by being photographed and giving their fingerprints, in line with the Asylum Procedure Act.

The BAMF is now revising thousands of granted asylum applications, following the case of a far-right German soldier who received asylum under the false identity of a Syrian refugee.

The perpetrator of the truck attack on a Berlin Christmas market in December last year, Anis Amri, had 14 false identities, German police reported. The Tunisian national plowed a truck into a crowd, killing 12 people.